Lenses
by Miruvix
Summary: Christmas, photophobia, and two orphans at an institue for geniuses. Slightly speculative MelloMatt orphanage fluff. [Spoilers only if you don't know who Matt is]


**Title: **Lenses

**Author:** Miru

**Rating: **PG, I think

**Warning: **Spoilers only if you don't know who Matt is

**Notes:** Most people don't wear goggles 24/7. Hence, it is my belief that there's gotta be _some_ reason why Matt wears them all the time. Short speculation on why he does, mixed with a bit of Christmas cheer, since it's the season.

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"I still don't see why we have to help decorate these trees."

Matt's voice came out somewhat muffled by the numerous evergreen branches he was trying to secure in place, his features crumpled into a clearly irritated expression as a long string of silvery tinsel went swinging by his eyes.

"Oh, just shut up and hold still. It'll end quicker that way."

Mello's voice wasn't that much clearer, as he currently had a string of Christmas lights held delicately between his jaws, trying not to bite too hard as he leaned precariously over the top of the tree, trying not to topple over as he draped the lengths of lights over the branches. He would have made a fine sight, perched so delicately at the top of a ladder, like some sort of weird nesting bird. Matt tried not to laugh. (It wasn't too hard, especially since the boughs were digging into the skin under his nose.)

Earlier that they, the orphans had been divided into pairs to help decorate the numerous Christmas trees dotted around Wammy's house, told to use the best of their abilities to "make the place look happier for the holiday season." The two M's were the first to start, but were the last to finish (the other children had long since returned to their daily lives), due to a little bit of…trouble they'd encountered earlier.

"There."

A swish of cloth (really, those pants were ridiculous; the bell-bottoms would put most hippies to shame), and Mello landed gracefully (or as gracefully as a thirteen-year-old could manage) on the tiled floor next to Matt, the redhead busy picking pine needles out of his shirt. Blonde hair glistened almost as brightly as the plastic ornaments hung on the branches, as Mello took a step back to look at the tree.

"Not bad. Roger won't blame us for doing a bad job, at least."

"Except for the fact that we _did_ break a good half of those lights the first time around."

"You were the one who stepped on them."

"Yeah, but you were the one who first tripped me."

There was a brief bout of pouted glaring between the two boys before they shrugged, muttering in almost practiced unison, "Tch, whatever." Mello looked the tree over once more before reaching down for the wire connecting the lights, flipping the switch with a small _click. _The lights flickered once, twice, then glowed brightly in an array of cheery colors (blue, green, red, yellow), blinking on and off in bunches like fireflies. For all of his dislike towards the menial task, Mello knew that the tree looked quite nice (well, at least considering that the two of them had decorated it all by themselves), and he basked in their glow.

Matt, on the other hand, recoiled and shrank back toward the less-lit half of the room, rubbing his eyes. "Goddammit, Mello, warn me before you do that!" (Somewhere behind him, one of the older kids frowned, most likely noting that that sort of language coming from the mouth of a young child was something to be mindful of, but Matt never really cared.)

Photophobia, or, as most people would call it, oversensitivity to light. Mello had thought it strange at first that the scrawny redhead would take to lurking in dark rooms so much, before finding out that dragging him into a too-bright room had him tearing up within seconds. At least it gave him a legitimate excuse to skip the stupid physical education classes they had every other week.

But still, Mello had a rather difficult time being mindful all the time. "Oh, right." The s-word (starting with an S and rhyming with "orry") slid to the tip of his tongue, then refused to come out, so he just turned away and shook his head instead, frowning a bit. "S'not my fault your eyes are messed up."

Still blinking, Matt wrinkled his brows, narrowing his eyes at the tree. "Yeah, but you could really—"

"Matt?"

The voice of a young woman calls from just outside the hallway, and the redhead flinched (catlike, in a way, Mello noticed). "Shit."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing…much."

"Yeah, I'm sure it was nothing, especially since it looks like they're looking for you."

A shuffling of feet as Matt peeked out the door, checking to see if the coast was clear as he muttered a hasty response. "I was bored the other day. And Roger confiscated my game. And the library system was easy to hack."

His curiosity piqued, Mello smirked. "And…?"

"…and I thought it would be funny to change the list of book titles with a porn video listing."

In all fairness, the boy _was_ in the middle of puberty, and the effects would have been amusing enough; Mello bit back a smirk as the footsteps quickened, the voice calling Matt's name rising in both volume and irritation. "Matt! Come out here right now!"

The door gave a small groan as the redhead shot through it, dashing down the hallway at full speed (which was considerable; he was scrawny but quick sort of kid), followed by more rushed thumping. No doubt the staff would be busy for the next hour or so hunting down the hacker-to-be. Mello had to try very hard not to laugh as he made his way to the side room, rummaging through his pockets for a stray chocolate bar he might have missed. "Haha, dumbass…"

Extracting half of a squishy bar from his pocket, he undid the wrapper, taking a bite out of it, then paused. Pulling back, he scrutinized the wrapper. Hershey's. Not his favorite brand, which he thought Matt would have known, but the redhead apparently hadn't, since a box of Hershey's was what the light-fearing scrawny kid had dumped on his bed two days ago with a drawled "Merry Christmas." Dumbass. Giving a present three days early.

Still, just before he opened the door, he paused to look back at the tree, the room bathed in the glow of the soft lights. It was frivolous, sure, and it was all commercial, he knew, this 'spirit of Christmas' which basically translated into a marketing scheme to get people to buy more and more and more.

Stalking over to the tree, he flicked the lights on to maximum brightness before leaving the room, the hallways still echoing with the wild footsteps that could only mean Matt had yet to be caught.

The next morning, Matt (exhausted from his two hour fandango the day before, which had ended in him getting caught by Roger while trying to hide in the attic, and being made to fix the entire library cataloguing system), woke up to a loud, "Merry Christmas!" yelled somewhere in the vicinity of his right ear, and the feeling of two round objects being shoved in his face. Sitting up with a surprised yelp, he clutched at his head for a moment before realizing that the 'two round objects' had been a pair of goggles, the golden lenses tinting his fingers with a yellow light.

Picking them up and examining them carefully for a moment, he gave Mello a wry smile, the blonde's cocky smirk giving him the urge to kick the other off his bed. "Christmas isn't for another two days." But what the hell, slipping the goggles on, he couldn't help but a smile a bit, the tinted plastic lenses offering some small protection (some of it physical, but most of it mental) for his poor abused eyes. Well, what did you know, the great Mello could actually be nice for once.

In response, Mello simply grinned hugely. "The goggle marks around your eyes make you look like a retarded owl. It fits."


End file.
